ACCC says Optus misled 20,000 NBN customers

Optus will face the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in Federal Court for allegedly pressuring 20,000 customers to switch to an NBN service early so that it could receive "significant" payments from the company building the network.

The court proceedings against Optus, which were announced late last week,
fulfil an ACCC pledge to take a major telecommunications carrier to court
before the year ends.

"We allege that Optus' misrepresentations put pressure on customers to move
to the NBN sooner than they were required to," says Rod Sims, chair of the
ACCC.

"This is particularly concerning as Optus received a significant financial
payment from NBN Co for each customer that moved from its cable network to
the NBN."

Optus, which is the third largest provider of NBN services in Australia, is
also said to have stifled competition by telling its customers they could
only sign with it and not a rival provider during the course of a year
until September 2016.

Optus says the court action relates to past processes that have already
been "successfully addressed".

"In late 2016, we made the decision to migrate customers off our broadband
cable network to the NBN as soon as an area was serviceable," a company
spokesperson tells CHOICE.

"During this process, we provided some customers with insufficient notice
of their options to migrate. As a result, some customers were disconnected
before they migrated to the NBN."

The company says it stopped the conduct when it became aware of it and
compensated the customers who were disconnected without being given sufficient
notice.